Local monitors say Sri Lankan polls fairly peaceful

A voter casts his ballot at a polling station in Colombo Jan. 8, 2015. Sri Lanka held presidential election on Thursday. [Photo/Xinhua]

COLOMBO - Local election monitors in Sri Lanka said the presidential elections were conducted in a fairly peaceful atmosphere during the first few hours since polling began on Thursday.

The most notable incident was a grenade attack in the northern town of Point Pedro in Jaffna where the explosion spread fear among voters but did not cause any casualties.

The local election monitoring group, Campaign for Free and Fair Election (CaFFE), said that the hand grenade attack had been reported 800 meters away from a polling booth.

CaFFE Executive Director Keerthi Tennakoon said that people who were going to vote had fled after the blast but voting later continued at the location.

The Center for Monitoring Election Violence (CMEV) said that brisk voting was seen in the southern part of the country while in the north the voter turnout was low during the first few hours.

CMEV said that among the incidents reported to them was an issue over the pens used to mark the ballot papers.

Elections Commissioner Mahinda Deshapriya had said that only pens issued by the Elections Department should be used to mark the votes. However the CMEV said that some voters had found that pencils were issued at some polling booths and not pens for the voters.

However, overall, the local election monitors said that the election was so far peaceful with no major incidents reported.